


Let it Fade Away

by theLiterator



Category: Batman (Comics)
Genre: Amnesia, Amnesiac Bruce, Father-Son Relationship, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-17
Updated: 2016-02-17
Packaged: 2018-05-21 04:57:44
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,148
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6039091
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/theLiterator/pseuds/theLiterator
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There are some things you simply cannot forget.</p>
<p>(Set during RSOB and the amnesiac!Bruce arc.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Let it Fade Away

It's not even that Bruce _thinks_ about it, he recalls after the fact. It's just that there is a familiar-strange blur out of the corner of his eye, and he reaches down instinctively, catching up the child in his bright colors and slinging him up to his shoulder, where the boy does a backflip and takes out one of the crazy guys in black that have been chasing him for blocks.

He gasps out a thanks, and catches a glimpse of a blank-eyed mask and dark, messy hair, before the kid is somersaulting again, breaking one of the other guys' arms and twisting the third to the ground.

The kid has them ziptied efficiently and then he grabs Bruce's hand and drags him out of the alley, back to the brighter street, and down the way.

When they arrive at a taxi stand, he bends to catch his breath and watches as the boy-- Robin, he must be, and isn't that illegal?-- keeps a weather eye on the road around them.

"Robin," Bruce says, startling himself with the tone of his voice. The boy straightens his spine and looks up at him. Bruce really ought to find that blank-white stare disconcerting, but he _doesn't_ "Thank you."

The boy shrugs, doesn't speak, and Bruce lays a hand on his shoulder. There is a cut on the boy's arm that is hard to see against the black of his shirt; just darker wetness and the barest glimpse of tanned skin beneath it. "Do you have someplace to go?" he asks.

Robin looks down at his arm, then back up at Bruce. "What do you care, old man?" the kid sneers, and his accent is strange, nothing Bruce can place, and yet _so_ familiar. Bruce squeezes Robin's shoulder, wonders if he used to know him, wonders _how_.

"At least let me thank you by feeding you, and I'm sure I have bandages at the... at my home." Bruce cannot shake the feeling that he _cannot_ let this child leave alone, that doing so would ruin... something.

Maybe just the child would be ruined, and Bruce can't stand for that either. 

"Fine," the boy grits out, finally, as a lone taxi wanders down the street to see if there's anything worthwhile at its stand. "Fine. But--" the boy shakes his head. "Fine."

Bruce wonders what it is that's stopping the kid-- it's not like he offers much of a threat to a boy who can disable three not-particularly-weak men at once in a dead end alley, with Bruce standing there watching helpless like he was the boy and Robin the adult. 

The cab driver seems to find nothing at all amiss about Bruce Wayne getting into his cab with one of the Robin kids, and Bruce wishes he were so relaxed about the whole thing, but he can feel the strain in his arm from the weight of the boy, the bruise on his shoulder from small, green combat boots, and there is tension in his spine.

He wonders what Alfred will say when he sees the boy.

The cabbie accepts Bruce's card for the fare without fussing, and Bruce leaves him a more than generous tip because the cabbie will remember the ride regardless, so he may as well make certain he remembers it _well_ , and then the boy is jogging ahead of him and flinging open the door to the Manor and stopping short just inside the foyer.

He is staring up at the curiously blank wall that Alfred had told him has always been blank, and his shoulders are slumped with something like defeat.

"Would you like cocoa?" Bruce asks, coming up behind him and resting both hands on the boy's shoulders. "Alfred-- my butler, that is-- will be asleep, but I'm sure there are leftovers in the fridge, and I can manage cocoa on my own."

The boy shudders a little, and looks around again, nodding once, firmly. "That would be acceptable."

"Also, I'm pretty sure there's a first aid kit in the kitchen. It's the place where most household accidents occur, after all," it's meant to be humorous, but the boy doesn't even smile, just keeps that steady-white gaze on Bruce's face.

Bruce can't help but feel like he has missed some great cosmic joke, but he's been feeling that way for months now, so he shrugs it off and smiles at the boy, which for some reason surprises him.

Has no one ever smiled at him before? He finds that hard to believe; the kid is out there, saving lives, and doing a skillful job at it too, if tonight was any indication. Surely someone he'd rescued had smiled at him, before. Fed him.

A soft beeping interrupts Bruce's thoughts, and the boy brings his hand to his ear. "Nobody," he snaps. After a few seconds, he replies to an unheard question with "I am with Bruce Wayne; he was accosted by unknown assailants." More silence, and then, "Of course I am _fine_ , why would I not be _fine?_ You should worry about your _own_ problems. Or have you found the solution to the situation with Deathstroke already?"

Bruce wants to chuckle at the pseudo-maturity the boy is imbuing in his voice, but the idea of a kid that young helping someone with a situation involving something called _Deathstroke_ makes him want to figure out the identities of... of the _entire_ Justice League and demand to know why they're letting little kids fight crime.

But he can't do any of that, so he offers the boy his hand and leads him down to the kitchens.

The boy seems wholly unimpressed by the vast wealth of the Manor, and Bruce had been under the impression that the Robin movement was made up almost entirely of less-privileged kids from Crime Alley. He wondered how accurate that statement was, in retrospect, and if the boy _was_ of Bruce's economic class, _whose_ son he was, and whether his parents knew what he was doing.

Once he has the boy settled into the breakfast nook, Bruce goes to fix the cocoa.

He returns a few minutes later, leftover supper fixed on plates for both of them, a carafe of hot cocoa, and silverware and napkins all balancing on one of Alfred's trays. The boy had shed his cape and his domino, and his red shirt is unfastened to reveal the black undershirt beneath it.

He turns startlingly blue eyes on Bruce and Bruce _froze_.

It’s _insane_ , because surely Alfred would have known if Bruce had some illegitimate child running around, and Alfred wouldn't have kept the existence of an underage _son_ from him, but he'd know his own eyes anywhere.

It must be a fluke, a freak occurence of genetics; blue eyes weren't exactly _rare_ , just less common than other colors.

Bruce forces a smile, and sits down across from him. "Leftovers and cocoa, as promised. And I found the first aid kit, but you'd need to take off your shirt for that, which I'd understand if you didn't want to do in front of a stranger."

He’s aware that he’s babbling, but the kid is just _staring_ at him with that frank, cold blue gaze. Bruce finds he prefers the whiteness of the domino lenses, because at least then he can pretend there is some emotion beneath them.

"So," Bruce says, noticing that the kid had waited for him to take a bite before he would, and taking the initiative to sip at the cocoa a bit so the kid would feel comfortable drinking too. "Robin, huh? What made you decide to go... with... that?"

The boy frowns at him. "My father died, and my older brother convinced me to aid him in protecting his legacy," the boy intones coolly.

"Uh," Bruce replies. "Batman?"

The boy shrugs. "If you will," he said noncommittally. He takes a sip of his cocoa. "I have a question," he says slowly, and then glances around the room warily. "Would you--" he folds his hands carefully in front of him and Bruce wonders who taught this kid to fear asking _questions_. "If you had the opportunity, would you want children?"

Bruce chuckles to cover his discomfiture. He is beginning to regret having ever decided to _walk_ tonight. "Is that an offer?" he jokes, but the boy doesn't even blink.

It seems like the entire thread of his existence has been leading up to this point, which is _stupid_ ; the entire thread of his existence is a few months at best, and before that he was... something else entirely.

Unbidden, the half-remembered sense of boys having a shouting match in the halls, of someone jumping from a chandelier and putting Bruce's heart in his throat, of noise and yelling and laughter, fills his mind, and he shakes it off because it is impossible. Surely, if he'd _had_ boys in this house, he'd have found evidence. Maybe it's just the idea of taking in _this_ Robin has made him think of the countless others, cold and shivering on the streets tonight in misguided effort to make Gotham a better place.

"Yes," he breathes, and the boy is _shocked_ at the answer, and Bruce doesn't know how he can tell, since the boy's poker face seems immutable.

"You-- really?" the boy asks, and there is expression in his voice for once, and his hands have tightened around each other so the knuckles are white, and he is twitching with anticipation in his seat.

The boy peers around the room again, and then he leans in close, and Bruce tips his head forward obligingly, and he says, "My name is Damian--" and the door crashes open and interrupts them.

"Master Bruce!" Alfred exclaims, and there is something like panic in his eyes. "You can't-- you should have woken me, if you needed the kitchen."

Bruce smiles at him, the one person he can count on above all else. "I didn't want to wake you. This is Robin," he adds, gesturing at the boy who is rigid again, tense in his seat.

Bruce wonders why, when Alfred is an old man still half in his pajamas, and Damian the Robin is fully capable of taking on them both without breaking a sweat should he need to.

He won't need to, of course.

" _A_ Robin, I suppose," Bruce adds, feeling warm and _right_ for the first time in a long time, though Alfred's stricken look is not at all warranted by the occasion of Bruce entertaining a little boy alone in the kitchen at midnight.

Or... perhaps it is, Bruce thinks, grimacing. "I haven't _hurt_ him," he snaps, thinking, not for the first time, that the Bruce Wayne he has forgotten must be an extremely unlikeable person, if Alfred can make _that_ assumption.

"Ah," Alfred says, shifting slightly. "Of course not, Master Bruce."

Damian sets his cocoa down precisely on the tray and starts collecting his cape and gauntlets and domino.

"Wait," Bruce says, wanting, more than anything, to keep speaking with this little boy who fights men three times his size. "You're still injured."

"Nobody will care for it," the boy says, and Bruce mouths the words to himself, utterly confused. The boy clears his throat. "Nobody is my partner's code name," he explains. Alfred's eyes are narrowed and angry. Angry? It must be the late hour is all.

"Thank you for the hospitality," the boy intones formally, and then, with a glance of pure venom directed at Alfred, he adds, "You may embrace me, if you are so inclined."

Bruce isn't sure what prompts it, beyond the weirdly formal words, but he lunges for the boy, _Damian_ , and he holds him tightly to his chest for long, long heartbeats. Once the boy is in his arms, he is loathe to let him go, off to this 'Nobody' who will see to the cut on his arm, and... and to what? Fighting some enemy that goes by 'Deathstroke'?

"Do you even have a bed to sleep in?" he mutters into the boy's messy hair.

"No," the boy replies. "But I am not welcome here. Goodbye, f--" The boy chokes a word off and Bruce _knows_ what he was going to say, but doesn't dare even _think_ it, here where Alfred will see and cut off the thought. "Goodbye," Damian repeats coolly, and then he is gone, and Bruce feels cold all over, even under Alfred's protective, paternal gaze.

"I wouldn't have hurt him," Bruce whispers, flexing his fingers.

"Come to bed, Master Bruce," Alfred says, sounding tired. "It's quite late."

"Of course, Alfred. You're the best, you know." Bruce turns to leave the kitchen, trailing behind Alfred like he's still a child, even though he knows he isn't.

_"Goodbye, Father,"_ Robin had never said, and he never would, because Alfred would have _told him_ if something like that were true.


End file.
